​​One of the most foolish causes of an air crash

Sometimes, the causes of air disasters are astonishingly foolish. Today’s story is truly at the top of the list.

On May 19, 1978, an Aeroflot Tu-154B was operating a scheduled flight from Baku to Leningrad. There were 134 people on board. In the cockpit, alongside the captain (making his first flight in this position), first officer, navigator, and flight engineer, was a flight engineer instructor.

While cruising at 9,600 meters over Kalinin (now Tver) Oblast, the flight engineer instructor and the first officer were deeply engaged in a discussion about the aircraft's control systems. During this time, no one noticed the engine RPMs dropping. Soon after, all three engines shut down, followed by a complete generator failure. This led to a partial loss of electrical power to the aircraft’s flight control systems.

The pilots realized there was a problem with the generators only after the aircraft pitched up, rolled to the right, and began losing airspeed. After correcting the pitch and roll - nearly a minute after the generator failure - the crew finally identified the cause: all three engines had flamed out.

To maintain airspeed at 500 km/h, the crew began an emergency descent, declared an emergency, and attempted to restart the engines multiple times - five attempts in total - but all were unsuccessful. At 5,000 meters, the crew tried to start the auxiliary power unit (APU), but that also failed because the APU was designed to operate only below 3,000 meters.

The nearest airfield was in the town of Bezhetsk, 65 kilometers away. Realizing they wouldn’t make it without power, the captain decided to perform an emergency landing in any suitable open area. It was daylight with clear weather, and the crew identified barley and potato fields below as viable options. Flight attendants informed the passengers, who fastened their seat belts and braced for impact.

During landing, the right wing struck a tree, and the aircraft rolled 150 meters across a field before briefly becoming airborne again. It then plowed through a tree line, severing trees along its path, flew about 650 meters further, and crash-landed once more, breaking apart as it skidded. The right landing gear collapsed, the right wing and one engine were torn off. The aircraft crossed a dirt road and a ditch, at which point the nose and left landing gear collapsed, along with part of the left wing. The fuselage finally came to rest 1,518 meters from the initial touchdown point, broken into three sections and engulfed in flames.

The crew managed to evacuate nearly all the passengers. Tragically, a 7-year-old girl’s legs were pinned by seat wreckage, and the crew was unable to free her before the fire spread. Her mother stayed behind trying to rescue her and died with her in the fire. Two other passengers also perished. A total of 27 people sustained injuries; the rest were unharmed.

The investigation revealed a shockingly absurd cause for the engine failure. The flight engineer instructor had decided to "test" the attentiveness of the regular flight engineer by switching off the automatic fuel transfer system to the service tank. The regular engineer didn’t notice, and the instructor - distracted by conversation - forgot he had done it. Neither of them monitored the fuel system properly or paid attention to the fuel gauge showing depletion. The low fuel warning light for the service tank failed to illuminate.

The Tu-154B had only one service tank feeding all three engines - a significant design flaw. With no fuel in that tank, all engines flamed out simultaneously.

The court sentenced the flight engineer instructor to three years in prison for criminal negligence (he was released early under amnesty). The captain was dismissed from Aeroflot.